Weekly Magazine | Soul Friendships
Your weekly magazine is here—real stories, real faith, real encouragement. Just for you!
Dear Friends,
There’s a kind of friendship that goes deeper than a shared hobby or a familiar face at church. Do you have a friend like this? The kind that shows up when life gets messy, when the dishes pile up (literally or figuratively), and when you can barely find the words to ask for help? It’s what we might call a soul friendship, and Scripture has a lot to say about why we need it.
This week, we’re talking about the friendships that carry us, just as God intended. The book of Ecclesiastes says: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor” (Eccl. 4:9).
Whether you’re in a season where you feel good about your connections, or you’re in a place where friendships feel far away, we pray this issue meets you right where you are.
Encouraging you in God’s truth,
How Friendship Makes Us All Stronger | Kari Bale
When depression made even basic tasks impossible, Kari discovered that accepting a friend's help wasn't weakness. Can you relate? She began to understand what soul-deep friendship looks like, and she shares how it mirrors God's design for community.
Friendships Through Thick and Thin | Tammy Whitehurst
With humor and honesty, Tammy celebrates the beauty of friendships that endure life’s ups and downs. She reminds us that laughter, grace, and shared experiences can carry us through even the most exhausting seasons.
Friendship Beyond Social Media | Gail Goolsby
Are your closest friendships living mostly inside a phone screen? Many of us spend large chunks of time on our electronic devices. Gail explores what Scripture says about real friendships. Here’s a hint: they often develop when we close our laptops and show up in person.
Also:
How Friendship Makes Us All Stronger
God’s Strength Often Comes Through a Friend.
By Kari Bale
The sink was filled with dishes: pots, pans, plates, bowls—all caked with dried, rotting food. The countertop on both sides had begun receiving the overflow, and the smelly tableware now reached all the way to the corner, where a particularly disgusting pile was swarming with fruit flies. That area, I had decided, was lost. I had ceded it to the flies.
For weeks, I had been eating fast food and takeout meals simply to avoid having to use my kitchen. Whenever I looked at the disaster zone that used to be my sink, I quickly looked away in shame, berating myself for failing to live up to even the most basic standards of adulthood. Frankly, I was willing to write off all of my cookware and dishes as beyond redemption, but I couldn’t even work up the motivation to throw them all into a garbage bag and take them to the dumpster behind my apartment building.
A Vicious Cycle
This may be impossible for some of you to understand, but this is life with a chronic major depressive disorder. Once a cycle of shame begins, it can be very hard to break. I got a little behind in doing my dishes and I had trouble finding the energy to catch up. Soon, I was ashamed of myself for not being able to get the dishes done, because there must be something wrong with me to fail at something so simple. But the shame only led to deeper depression and further exhaustion, which in turn led to more and more dishes piling up in the sink, until an entire 16-piece dinnerware set has been lost to a swarm of fruit flies. “Pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up” (Eccl. 4:10).
The fact is, I was not going to be able to pull myself out of this hole—not on my own. I did not have the energy, I did not have the willpower, and frankly, I did not have the skills. I needed help.
